Pleurothallis leopardina Luer 1981 SUBGENUS Pleurothallis SECTION Pleurothallis SUBSECTION Longiracemosae [Luer] Luer 1998
TYPE Drawing by © Carl Luer and The Swiss Orchid Foundation at the Jany Renz Herbaria Website
Common Name The Leopard-Like Pleurothallis [refers to the spotted sepals]
Flower Size .12" [3 mm]
Found in Cauca department of southern Colombia and Loja, Napo and Azuay provinces northern Ecuador at elevations of 2400 to 3200 meters as a miniature to medium sized, cold growing, caespitose epiphyte with slender, erect ramicauls enveloped by a thin, tubular sheath below the middle and 2 to 3 others at the base and carrying a single, apical, erect, coriaceous, elliptical-ovate, acute, broadly cuneate below into the the sessile base leaf that blooms in the spring and summer on 1 to 6, arising through a slender spathe at the base of the leaf, erect to arching, subdense, distichous to subsecund, 2.4 to 4.4" [6 to 11 cm] long including the .4 to 1.6" [1 to 4 cm] long peduncle, simultaneously many flowered inflorescence with an infundibular, shorter than the pedicel floral bract.
"Similar to P divaricans but differs in the slightly larger plant with an elliptical leaf carrying several, many flowered racemes of small, dark red to purple spotted flowers. The petals are thickened and obtuse and the lip is broadly ovate and concave without deflexion and is distinguished by a pair of low, rounded calli above the middle." Luer
Synonyms Pleurothallis atrorubra Luer & Hirtz 1996
References W3 Tropicos, Kew Monocot list , IPNI ;
* Phytologia 49: 209 Luer 1981;
Lindleyana 11: 148-149 Luer & Hirtz 1996 as P atrorubra drawing fide;
Icones Pleurothallidinarum Vol III Systematics of Pleurothallis Luer 1986;
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